crain’s insider reports:
weinshall’s successor
insiders believe that mayor mike bloomberg will look inside his administration for iris weinshall’s replacement as transportation commissioner. but because bloomberg will be out in 2009, top transportation people may favor state jobs: state transportation commissioner, long island railroad president or new york city transit president. nj transit is seeking an executive director. two private-sector candidates could be janette sadik-kahn of parsons brinckerhoff, who lost out to weinshall for the job, and former mta chair bob kiley, who implemented congestion pricing in london. weinshall is leaving for cuny in mid-april.

How about removing all tolls on the Verrazano and giving the East River Bridges to the MTA to make up the difference to their bottom line? That way everybody wins.

P

Interesting, Steveo.

Bill

re LI Freight Trains article

This was amazing. As I was reading, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, with a quote from someone representing some peabrained NIMBY oufit about “noise, diesel fumes, dangerous level crossings,” etc., conveniently ignoring that the noisiest, most air-polluting, safety-impaired freight line would still lower the overall quality of life much less than, say, the daily millions of drivers on Long Island’s roads.

But that quote never appeared. Thanks, NYT.

karen

Re: Bush administration’s censuring of climate scientists: For anyone interested in further reading, the testimony from this hearing can be read directly at the Oversight and Government Reform committee site located here:

Seems to me that this is an important story. I know plenty of people who still seem to think that there is a big debate about some of the science of global warming among scientists, and that simply isn’t the case. For anyone who thinks that our elected officials and their administrations should be held accountable, the claim that Bush’s administration is routinely refusing to provide information to Congress when asked for it, should set off alarm bells.

Re: Times on rail – great how the article was completely written to fit the writer’s clever theme of contrast between “gritty” “sooty” freight trains and the sleek, well-heeled LIRR riders and passenger trains. Has the writer ever spent any time on the LIRR, in the stations, on Long Island?